Sat Dec 15, 2012 at 15:31:22 PM EST

I have spent a lot of today listening to people who disagree with me. It's not that my position on guns has changed since the Connecticut massacre, I've always felt that guns were bad and should be banned. A lot of people today have explained to me that they shouldn't have to give up their guns because they are "responsible" gun owners.

Really?

Years ago, the argument for having a gun was so that you could shoot someone who broke into your house while one was sleeping. This never made sense to me. Do you sleep with the gun on the bedside table so you can grab and shoot? What if the person you think is a robber is actually a friend or family member to whom you gave a key? If you leave your gun out, how responsible are you if your child wakes up in the middle of the night and decides to play with said firearm? If you don't keep the gun right next to you, how do you get the gun out of the gun safe, load it and then kill the intruder? And basically, wouldn't a dog and a alarm system work better?

Years ago, someone actually did come in through the back door while I was asleep. The cops were able to get the piece of bloodied blue jean Olivia chomped off of him when she heard someone approaching, ran downstairs silently and protected her home, as any good dog would. When they caught him, they had DNA. Good dog.

I keep reading statistics that where gun laws are more lax (like in the south) more people die from shootings. Not to mention the inner city communities where kids often have PTSD by the time they're teenagers from the constant gunfire outside. Having to sleep in a bathtub will do that to you. It's like a war zone.

But these people, whom I know, defend their rights to have their guns. They don't use them for crime, and often they don't fire them on a regular basis. They just like having them. I don't get it.

They say they're responsible, but mental illness is not something one is born with: it develops later, and the statistic is that more than 10% of people will get some form of mental illness over their lifetime. You don't know when you buy that gun that you WON'T end up with depression, or bipolar disorder a year, or 10 years, down the road.

And what about alcohol. How many gun owners drink? Could that affect their "responsible-ness"?

As I write this, the details of the Connecticut "why" are still evolving. We probably won't know for at least a few days. But it's obvious that Lanza was mentally ill. Why is it so much easier in America to get an arsenal than treatment for mental illness?

I have come to the view that owning a gun makes you feel less safe. Because you have a gun, you think you need it cause as a species we like to validate our own decisions. Why do you need it? Because the world must be a scary, dangerous place or else you wouldn't have a gun. It is a vicious self-reinforcing circle that in the end leaves you worse off than when you started.

First of all, I strongly support the right of gun ownership
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While I am not a huge fan of hunting, as a meat eater, I neither condemn hunters or fishermen, and even vegetarians have never come up with a good answer to me as to the animals killed in the whole process of getting crop to table, as well as the whole why is it okay to kill plants but not animals. i do find sport fishermen and sport hunters to be slightly more disgusting than drug dealers and pimps.

my problem is that the 2nd amendment does not in anyway appear to be about private gun ownership, it is a clause to defend against too strong of a central govt by the various states. on one level i can understand, on another, i think we have out grown the whole let the states defend with violence against a central govt.

as it is, it seems to me that we should restrict all guns to people who have done the following, passed a mental stability evaluation, passed a weapons competency test, bought liability insurance, say the same one million i have to carry to climb in your attic and take a few pictures for a home inspection, and maintains continuing education about both safety and care and operations as well as an occasional mental re evaluation. guns not kept in a govt approved secure location (anchored heavy duty gun safe, and ammo kept in another safe and secure location, not with weapons), any time one is to use the weapon, one should have to notify local authorities and take safety precautions. anyone who does not properly secure both weapons and ammo and fails to notify officials when weapon is being used, should both lose the right to own weapon and suffer a financial and possibly criminal penalty. any truly responsible gun owner should not object to the above restrictions, and if they abided by them, i would have no concern about them having a gun. any transfer of any weapon would require the new owner to meet all the above requirements and the transfer would have to be recorded and approved by local officials. anyone, anywhere with an unregistered gun and without a license should be subject to both a heavy fine ($10,000?) and at least 90 days in jail for first offense, with maybe a year or more and $100,000 fine for repeated offenses.

again, a truly responsible gun owner should have no problems with these requirements.

As some of you know, I am not a Democrat nor Republican, and that I am retired military. As such, let me bring a different perspective to the discussion.

Let me start off by saying that I have not only owned guns for most of my life, but have also worked in retail at part-time jobs selling guns at sporting good stores. As a responsible gun seller, there were times that I refused to sell guns to individuals simply based on a feeling. You can pick up on some just by the way they act or the things that they say. Some are downright scary. I had one walk up to the counter and ask which gun was best for killing someone. He didn't go home with a gun that day, but in further conversations with him, he was getting a job as an armed guard and had never owned guns before. But even the few that are weeded out by the national background checks and the clerks being responsible, there are tons of guns that get into the hands of people that should never have one.

I don't own guns for protection. I don't keep one loaded in the house or on my person. I don't own guns because I am scared. If I were scared of an area, I would live there or go through there. I own guns because I like to shoot paper. I like the skill it takes to hit the bullseye at 50-100 yards. For me it's a hobby, but I know there are a lot of folks that own them because they are scared of where they live, and media outlets like FOX ramp up that fear. The NRA does it too in trying to scare them into tho thinking that the Boogieman Government is going to come and try to disarm them.

Guns themselves are not the problem. That is what I tried to get at in my post earlier this week around the time of the Portland Mall Shooting. All the gun does is give the nuts a tool to do massive damage with little effort. Before guns were as prevalent, there were bombings and other events at schools. Crazies are going to do crazy things. The intent of my post:
http://www.demconwatchblog.com...was to have a discussion around what could be done to attack the central problem. What makes people in society think it is okay to kill others (outside of defense/war).

You can blame TV for desensitizing folks. You can also blame video games, especially First Person Shooting games. You can go into a War Sim and shoot other people. But you can't blame these things in and of themselves. I play these games, I watch shows with killings everyday. I own guns. Yet I know the difference between right and wrong and outside of war, don't think I would ever bring a gun to bare on another human.

So, you can bring back and expand the Brady Bill. You can require 100% background checks, even for private sales (which is exempt from checks), you can require doctors treating the mentally ill or clinically depressed to enter person into the background system to prevent purchase, but what if they already have guns. Same with domestic violence cases. Surely there is something that can be done to lessen the occurrences. One organization that is doing good work is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/

There are responsible gun owners. We need to do something so we don't go back to the Wild West days. Not sure the answer, but did want to stand up for the Responsible gun owners. ;o)

We are in a rural area. It would take several minutes for emergency personnel. There have been some vandalism over the last 10 yrs. Also, we have had to scare away several coyotes from our dog and our chickens.

Dick's Sporting Goods stores in the Connecticut area have pulled all rifles off their shelves, and across the nation they have pulled their AR style rifles. Also, Dicks, Walmart, Academy Sports, and others have removed AR styles rifles off their websites and from the shelves. From what I have heard, they will still sell the stock they have, but people have to ask. If they don't see them on the shelves, they might assume that the store is out of stock.

Now for the freak out news. There has been such a run on these stores for guns and ammo. The fear of the Bogeyman government taking these things away has caused the run. The store I used to work at normally closes at 8pm on Sundays. This past Sunday they were open past midnight because they had that many customers in the store waiting to see and buy guns.